


Of Books and Timber

by duskandstarlight



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskandstarlight/pseuds/duskandstarlight
Summary: A one-shot where Cassian builds Nesta some bookshelves in Illyria (or a missing scene from Embers & Light).“Well, are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”Her question held slightly more vigour than before, but not as much as it usually did. In these moments when Nesta felt like she had broken yet again and was muddling herself back together, she couldn’t summon the strength to be normal.“I’m building you new bookshelves.”Nesta set her book down in her lap. She made her eyes narrow. “Don’t you have work to do?”“Yes,” Cassian said simply, as if he were the most intelligent of them and he were giving her a lecture. “Building you more shelves is on today’s agenda. If I had known I’d be living with someone who spends half her life indulging in raunchy smut, I would have built a reading room.”
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 27
Kudos: 163





	Of Books and Timber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jeakat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeakat/gifts).



> I was suffering from writer’s block this week so I asked Jeakat to send me a headcanon of hers. She reminded me that she wanted me to develop on my mention of Cassian building Nesta bookshelves in Embers & Light and so this fic was born! 
> 
> You don’t have to have read Embers & Light to understand this. It can standalone just fine 😊
> 
> Let me know if you like it! As always I live for your comments and kudos!

**Of Books and Timber**

It was a grey sort of day. Not just in terms of the weather, although it was true that the sky was smoky and atmospheric, as if it too had been leeched of light. 

Curled up in bed, Nesta arranged the pile of blankets around her and opened the book in her lap. Her skin was pink from standing under the faucet, but already she was experiencing the type of deep-set chill that left you unfeeling, as if a guillotine had severed a vital connection.

She had just discarded the deep mauve ribbon that acted as a makeshift bookmark when Cassian entered. He opened the door she had deliberately propped shut with a push of his foot, before casually manoeuvring into the room, a set of wide planks of wood tucked neatly under his arm.

Nesta watched him place them down by the large window to the left of the bed without so much as a hello. The wood was a streak of white and brown grain against the soft carpet.

If Nesta had been feeling better, she might have thought how strange it was for Cassian to come into her room uninvited. The Illyrian usually knocked or allowed her a surprising amount of privacy when she sought solitude, so it was not expected behaviour.

Even so, she could not set aside the overwhelming exhaustion that had overcome her in order to snarl or hiss.

In fact, she neither moved an inch or set down her book, as she said, “What are you doing.”

The words were not friendly but they weren’t heated either. They held a dead, lifeless quality that rang in her ears as if she had not said them.

Worry settled in the lining of her stomach, an additional layered weight that she could not deal with. Not when she already felt both light and impossibly heavy.

Slowly, Cassian straightened up. She tracked his wings as they flared out wide, stretching leisurely before they tucked tightly back into his spine. There was a pause as his eyes swept over her and then a slow, deliberate curve of his lips that was so taunting she knew he was looking for a verbal spar.

He was going to be disappointed.

“What does it look I’m doing?” he replied.

Nesta turned the page that she had not read. “It looks like you’re dragging the forest into my bedroom.”

It was slightly melodramatic but Nesta couldn’t find it in herself to care.

“Oh, it’s your bedroom now, is it?” Cassian asked, his response as quick as a striking asp. The dark eyebrow which was slashed through with a scar rose sky-high. “And here I was thinking you hated everything about this place.”

Something flickered inside of her — irritation. Usually Nesta would have thrown her book at his head by now, but her arms felt too heavy. So she only slid her steely eyes back to him and surveyed him with such preternatural stillness that he paused.

“Well, are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”

Her question held slightly more vigour than before, but not as much as it usually did. In these moments when Nesta felt like she had broken yet again and was muddling herself back together, she couldn’t summon the strength to be normal.

“I’m building you new bookshelves.”

Nesta set her book down in her lap. She made her eyes narrow. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes,” Cassian said simply, as if he were the most intelligent of them and he were giving her a lecture. “Building you more shelves is on today’s agenda. If I had known I’d be living with someone who spends half her life indulging in raunchy smut, I would have built a reading room.”

He gestured to the piles of books that had taken up residence beneath the dressing table to illustrate his point, but his words had Nesta stiffening, as if a rod has been rammed up her spine and jerked her awake.

“This is a mystery novel,” she snapped, her eyes heating with such sudden ferocity she wondered if they had turned the colour of fire-smoke.

A triumphant grin took up residence on Cassian’s face at her dramatic switch from offence to defence. She hated that he’d clocked it. And Nesta hated herself even more when she held the book up for him to see; as if she needed to prove to him that she was not in fact reading something salacious.

Another sensation pierced briefly through the numbness. Because who could blame Nesta if she did indulge in the odd sensual novel? She sure as hell hadn’t been slipping between the sheets with any of the Illyrian males since her arrival in Windhaven. Not least because they were cruel and sneering, but also because Nesta had a suspicion that Cassian would castrate anybody if she so much as gave them the once over. Already there was too much blood on her hands — the war with Hybern had seen to that — and given Cassian’s occasional habit of growling at any males who lingered around the sparring ring whilst they trained in the morning’s, it wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

Aggressive male behaviour was not a trait Nesta usually permitted, but this morning she had been thankful for Cassian’s territorial display. A few of the sons of local lords had hung around the sparring ring during her morning training session. She had clocked them right away — the swagger to their posture and the sort of arrogance in the air about them that cried that they had never been told no — warily watching as they crept closer and closer, until one of them had deigned to lean over the wooden railing that separated the camp and the ring.

Usually Nesta would had blazed fire, but she had woken with the heavy sort of dread that signalled that she was going to have a hard day — the kind of day that dampened her fire until it was nothing but smoke. For a moment, she had considered trying to summon it, but even that had seemed too much. Cassian seemed to sense it. His jaw had been clenching on and off for a good half hour and one sweeping look at the blood draining from her face had him spinning on his heel and snarling with such ferocity that Nesta could have sworn the mountain pass shook.

His features had changed from tame to something wholly wild then, and not for the first time did Nesta wonder how often Cassian had completely unleashed his temper… his power. She had a feeling that when he did he could be unstoppable. Just the sight of him raging, his wings thrown wide and his claws viciously open had her blood singing. She had felt his magic rush through his veins, had seen his siphons glow with deathly promise as the males had scarpered and not so much as glanced backwards.

Nesta had harboured that protective rage in the pit of her stomach with a quiet she did not usually allow. The males irises had been too dark — an unfathomable depth that Nesta could not read or dissect. They held a similar quality to Tomas’s eyes just before he assaulted her — dilated pupils darkened obsidian by desire and the thrill of forbidden indulgence.

It scared her and Cassian had known it. Had read her even before he had looked at her.

Sometimes Nesta thought he could be anywhere in Prythian and still he would know. As if he had the ability to read her in a way that no-one else could.

For a long time afterwards, Cassian had not looked her in the eye. He only barked at her to discard the longsword and moved them on to some free-spar, where he went over and over each defensive move until she struck the most effective counter-attack.

Never did he pin her with the force he should have, especially not when she was face down. As if he knew of the violent memories that knocked the breath out of her lungs when she was made that vulnerable; of how Tomas’s breath had rattled in her ear and the way his fingers had forced and torn at her clothing; of how his dirty, bitten nails had raked down her skin and forever left their mark.

Cassian had made her practice getting out of that particular hold until she was so frayed and raw her magic had finally roared. She had twisted beneath him just in time, his body hard against hers as she flung her palms to the sky, silver streaking across the already grey sky until she was panting with the relief of it.

When her hands finally fell back to her sides, she realised Cassian was still poised over her, watching her with a fierce sort of intensity that told her he was seeing right into the very fabric of her being. He had not balked or flinched at her magic. Had only sat back on his heels and asked if she’d wanted to stop.

Nesta had only shaken her head and taken his hand as he’d pulled her up, before she fell back into fighting stance and beckoned him to come at her again.

They spent what felt like hours practicing that same scenario; over and over, until she could twist her body with such nimble ease and understand that if she drove her head backwards so hard that it knocked the attacker in the nose, she could get free.

It was only then that she felt like she could breathe again. She had sat in the mud, drawing in huge lungfuls of breath with her forehead resting on her arms.

To his credit, Cassian had not rushed her, even as it had started to sleet. He had only sat beside her in the muck until she was ready to walk back to the bungalow; a steady, silent presence.

But now, Cassian barked a loud laugh at the book she was showing him. “I believe the cover claims it’s a mystery novel,” he started, “but what of the writing inside of it? Is Lord Barren having his dirty way with Felicity again? He really is quite the charmer.”

Liquid embarrassment flooded Nesta’s entire body, the reaction too fierce to stifle. It flashed across her expression, her cheeks staining into an awful blush. “You read my book,” she hissed.

Cassian’s eyes flashed triumphant at seeing her flustered — at the anger that pierced through that numbness. “I may have leafed through it the other night,” he admitted casually.

Nesta frowned. It was true that she had a habit of leaving her books lying around, but Cassian was very rarely alone in the bungalow. She was always there in some capacity and in the evenings after dinner, they often fell into a mutual silence as she read and he went over papers.

She would have definitely noticed if he were reading one of her books.

“When,” she demanded.

Cassian turned back to the evenly cut planks of wood. They smelt wonderfully of pine resin and wood shavings. From the smooth look to them, he had already stripped them down save for the bark at the edges which left a wonderful reddy hue. “I couldn’t sleep. You left it in the living room.”

Nesta remembered that. She had found Cassian asleep on the couch when she had woken in the early hours; one long wing draped over the back of the cushions, the other trailing on the floor by the coffee table. She hadn’t looked close enough to clock the discarded book resting on his chest. Rather, she had used all of her focus to ensure she didn’t wake him as she crept to the bathroom. That, or she had been too preoccupied with how exhausted Cassian had looked; the dark smudges like deep bruises against his sleep-softened features.

Making her mask expressionless and unfazed, Nesta said coldly, “If you’ve read some of it, you’ll know it is a murder mystery.”

That resulted in a grin so wicked Cassian’s canines flashed. “A dirty murder mystery,” he corrected. “I’ll admit I found it rather riveting.”

Feigning indifference, Nesta flipped the page of her book even though she had not read its contents — as if he were boring her. In the corner of her eye, she saw his nostrils flare.

She hummed in a noncommittal way. “I suppose you’re talking about when Lord Barren followed Felicity to the summer house.”

Brazenly, Nesta lifted her eyes to meet his. Cassian’s eyes were burning so brightly they turned amber. The effect was mesmerising and utterly breathtaking. It made Nesta want to look away, but she would not allow herself to back down like a coward.

When Cassian next spoke, Nesta was sure his voice had dropped an octave. “It gave me some ideas,” he confessed.

Nesta snorted as if she were wholly unimpressed rather than having to reign in her heartbeat, which was already in her mouth. She did not let herself snap back. Did not allow herself to drily remark that the next female he took home was in for a surprise, largely in fear that he might bring it back round to her with some innuendo that she was not ready for.

She also didn’t want to think about who Cassian was bedding. That made her want to self-combust into a thousand pieces.

Cassian was watching her with interest, his head slightly cocked as if he were trying to guess the thoughts he was not privy to. Instinctively, Nesta tightened her shield, refortifying her ice until it was impenetrable.

Her mouth was dry, but she did not allow herself the luxury of swallowing.

“If you want to read somewhere quiet,” Cassian said eventually, after they had been staring one another down for a moment too long, “you might want to move to the living room while I put these up.”

_The fire is lit in the living room._

But Nesta did not give voice to her thoughts, she only shrugged. “I’m comfortable here.”

Another pause and then Cassian’s gaze flicked to the log burner at the hearth — the log burner he had installed so she could be warmer without fear of triggering her battle trauma. And Nesta did use it… on good days. But today was not a good day and she was so sensitive to sound she had been forced to swarm her body in blankets instead.

“I won’t be long,” Cassian promised. And then even though the action was at odds with the understanding on his face, the bastard winked. “Go back to your smutty book, sweetheart.”

Fuming, Nesta watched Cassian survey the left-hand wall, which stretched out to harbour the deep-set window that looked out onto the camp. The ledge was so wide that Nesta sometimes tucked herself behind the dressing table to sit there and watch the snow fall.

The presence of Cassian in her room was too much for Nesta to relax, and whilst she tried to get back to her book, the words only swam on the page, the ink blurred rather than focussed. So she continued to study him over the top of her book instead: the movement of his large wings unconsciously keeping him balanced as he plucked a plank of wood from the carpet; the muscles straining in his upper torso as he held it against the wall; the stolid breadth of him as he swallowed up her room, making it too small, too intimate for her to even breathe properly.

“I need a hand.”

Nesta blinked. Thankfully Cassian had not craned his head to look round at her, but she froze the blush that threatened to rush to her cheeks for her blatant staring.

For once, she did not put up a fight, pushing off the blankets and climbing out of bed.

Cassian glanced down at her in surprise as she drew to a stop beside him, as if he had not been expecting her to do as he had asked. A lock of hair fell over his face as he did so, but he did not move his hands from the shelf he was resting against the wall to secure it behind his rounded ear. Half of his hair was up in a haphazard knot today and secured by a scrap of leather. The rest was free and wild, falling in wind-snarled tangles to his shoulders, which were clad in a dark tunic.

“The downside of having me fit these shelves for you is that I’m a lot taller,” he started, and Nesta scowled, somehow knowing what he was going to ask before he did. “Can you reach the top of this one?”

Nesta was not foolish enough to lower herself by standing on her tiptoes to reach the shelf he was holding with such casualness. Nesta supposed Cassian was so strong that for him, the wood was akin to the weight of a feather. Certainly when he carried her, he gave no indication that she was too heavy. Although, Nesta supposed that wasn’t surprising when she had barely eaten for well over a year.

Despite slowly piling on the pounds, she was still too thin — hideously so, at times — and Nesta had gone from being indifferent about her deliberate starvation to being ashamed of it; of the sharp, unforgiving lines of her body and the way her legs bowed dangerously when she wore her leathers.

“I can’t reach that,” she snapped, the thought fuelling her fire. She crossed her arms defiantly over her chest and glared up at him. “You’re gigantic.”

The insult had Cassian throwing his head back with a laugh. Still chuckling, he lowered the wood so it was half a metre above her head. “That should do it,” he told her, light dancing in his eyes.

“Is that it?” Nesta clipped, keen to hunker back down beneath the blankets, even as her lips threatened to turn upwards at the ends.

Cassian’s expression turned apologetic, his assessing gaze falling straight to her bare arms and the goosebumps that littered them. “Nearly,” he promised. “You see that piece of charcoal there?” He pointed his chin with deliberation to an open tin on the floor. Can you make two gentle marks against the top and bottom of the wood line at each end?”

A pause as Nesta considered.

Then she bent to pick up the charcoal.

The black instantly dusted her fingers dark and she focussed on the stain against the pads of her fingertips, not allowing herself to think how close to him she’d have to get.

The scent of him hit her in a rush of steady warmth as she closed the distance. Unable to help the proximity, her arm brushed his and she felt him tense as she made quick work, his breath a caress against her cheek as he blew out a long, slow breath.

“That’s it,” he assured her, after she had made a set of four marks for each of the planks. His hazel eyes were still amber — almost liquid gold flecked with the odd bit of ocean green.

She stepped away from him with a brisk nod, craving distance and the safety she found in her nest of blankets.

Cold instantly crept back into her bones.

Cassian didn’t speak to her again after that. He worked quietly, despite the odd hammering as he drove nails into the walls to secure the brackets. By the time she climbed out of bed intent on heating up some chai on the stove, he was nearly done.

Despite the deliberate quiet with which she moved, he turned to smile at her as she padded across the carpet. The movement was completely unconscious; as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the sight of her to bring him joy.

It was that which had her pausing at the doorway, her feet grounding her without her ordering them to, her mind casting back to the way that he had sat with her in the mud and rain until she felt strong enough to walk back to the house on shaking legs.

“You really built the bungalow?” she asked.

Surprise flitted across his features at her question, before it was replaced with one that was more guarded. The smile fell slowly from his face and Nesta wished she could catch it and freeze it back in place.

Light vanished from his eyes, amber taking on a darker, less vibrant quality. “Yes,” he said. “I thought you of all people would have guessed that the bungalow was built with a bastard’s taste.”

Nesta surveyed the shelves against the walls — the shelves he had vowed to make her and had built without her prompting. Of the books that he had already stacked on them; their spines a splash of colour and warmth. Some of which he had bought for her when he knew she was lonely and only found solace in words on a page.

Before Nesta had arrived in Illyria, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something so selfless for her.

So for once she did not lace her words with derision, even though his had held bite.

“I’d choose this bungalow to an extravagant house by the river any day,” she said quietly, mustering every ounce of sincerity into her voice so he knew she wasn't being calloused. That for once she was being amiable. To show she could be someone who did not wrap herself in thorns to hurt others. Not always.

As she turned to leave the room, she caught the expression that spread across Cassian’s features:his tan face had brightened, as if it were devoid of shadow; his lips slightly parted; his eyes soft...

Her heart twisted and her ribcage ached all the way to the kitchen, where she put the saucepan on the heat and placed the kettle on the stove. She pulled green tea leaves fresh out the tin and put them in one of the mugs she had taken from the cupboard — a beautiful, smoky blue that Nesta had always liked.

When the cast iron kettle whistled, she poured boiling water onto the leaves and dropped in a wedge of lemon, before pouring her chai into a separate mug.

She did not like the way her heart rattled nervously in her chest as she walked back across the living space to her room. It was silly she knew, to be so anxious about making someone a cup of tea. But it was not really a cup of tea: it was a thank you and an offering; a sliver of herself; a vulnerability and deliberate crack in her armour. It told him that she had watched him with intention when she feigned indifference; that she cared when she pretended that she did not; that after everything, it was only him that could make her stop feeling numb.

One cup of tea and all that meaning.

A cup of tea to start things anew.

But when Nesta crossed the threshold Cassian was no longer there. Only the scent of pine and musk and her new shelves, stacked full of books waiting to be read.

Later.

They’d have later.


End file.
